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Place Name (Fictional Language) Generator

One of my favorite parts of maps--and speculative fiction & fantasy in general--is a set of good names. This basically means, of course, a realistic-sounding language, for as Tolkien has so prominently shown, both coherence and coordination in a fictional language can have an amazing power.

(And, by the way, the opposite is also true: a poorly created language affords only silly, stale, or clunky place names. Pop fantasy is full of this, but take Christopher Paolini as the top of
"almost decent" language makers: he tries so hard but has no ear for it, IMO & from what little I've been subjected to of his writing.)

An alternative (if you're in a rush or don't really want to give it much thought) is to use an automated place name generator like this one: http://nine.frenchboys.net/country.php which is from the seventh sanctum generator site.

If you have the rudiments of a fantasy (or real) language underpinning the placenames they are going to sound more consistent, like the author of the GM mastery article says which is going to be difficult for an autogenerator to pull off.

Re: Place Name (Fictional Language) Generator

Originally Posted by pyrandon

One of my favorite parts of maps--and speculative fiction & fantasy in general--is a set of good names. This basically means, of course, a realistic-sounding language, for as Tolkien has so prominently shown, both coherence and coordination in a fictional language can have an amazing power.

(And, by the way, the opposite is also true: a poorly created language affords only silly, stale, or clunky place names. Pop fantasy is full of this, but take Christopher Paolini as the top of
"almost decent" language makers: he tries so hard but has no ear for it, IMO & from what little I've been subjected to of his writing.)

Hehe, that looks vaguely familiar! Having used the method described in the article Pyrandon linked, let me state that it LOOKS very involved and tedious but in reality it works rather well and actually gave me a slew of names on my first go round!

I've always used my own methods for naming things, either in a fantasy form (IE, Cron Silverglade) or by realistic fantasy (IE, Granj Marabek) for all types of names be it people, places or things. Its a gift really, but enough about me... When I'm pressed for time or have a sudden Naming Block... I turn to Tablesmith that I got from Mythosa a very, very long time ago. I'm a somewhat of a fan of randomly generating things... just about anything... I've no idea why, I just like to see the rolls come up... it's like reaching into a goody-bag every time... "OOOOOHHHH.. What's it going to be this time?!?" ... ya.. i'm weird, I know. But this program has literally hundreds of tables for hundreds of different things...

Oh.. and look at this.. they have a new version ... yeah!!.. time to update